Summit Entertainment and Brad Pitt Staking 'Vlad'

You would have to be living under a rock in the deepest regions of the jungle, or the frostiest regions of the Arctic to avoid knowing that Summit has made some major money out of a bunch of broody vampires. So, while they're developing comic books and Houdini franchises, they're also making sure they have another immortal in their stable. The immortal of all immortals: Dracula. But it isn't the bloodsucking Dracula, but rather the one of historic legend known as Vlad Tepes.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Summit has optioned a script by actor-turned-writer Charlie Hunnam that tells the story of the young Vlad Tepes. Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing, and they're in negotiations with Anthony Mandler to direct. This would be Mandler's directorial debut, and he reportedly wowed them with a sizzle reel reminiscent of 300. THR notes that Summit has very much wanted their own 300 since losing Zack Snyder's to Warner Bros, and what better historical figure to adapt to that style than the Impaler?

The film is said to be "an action oriented take" but Vlad's military record is completely wrapped up the thousands upon thousands of people he had dismembered and impaled. You don't make a film about Vlad Tepes unless you're going to revel in that sort of thing. I immediately want to say that you can't even make him sympathetic, but Bram Stoker's Dracula repainted him as a lovesick lord, so there you go. (He even impaled people -- but they were Turks so no one blinked an eye.) You have to hand it to Summit, though. Whereas most studios find it daring to take on William Wallace or King Leonidas, they're going for the king of all horror and splatter. One frame of this might make up for all those angered by Twilight's bloodlessness.